


so fair, so cruel

by ryuuzaou



Category: Pandora Hearts
Genre: Angst, Blood, Death, Gen, Self-Hatred, Trans Character, copious amounts of blood, its 5am & i hate myself, unsafe binding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-13
Updated: 2016-07-13
Packaged: 2018-07-23 18:27:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 865
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7475166
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ryuuzaou/pseuds/ryuuzaou
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>oz has never really liked himself.</p>
            </blockquote>





	so fair, so cruel

**Author's Note:**

> titles from black sun by dcfc bc im too lazy to reread this & find a suitable title lmao, ,, im on like chapter 40 of the manga & then i read a shitton of spoilers bc i hate myself & then i was like 'he has to love himself' but then another part of me was like 'ok but how could he ever' & then i got sad & wrote some sad

Oz had never really liked himself.

After all, his father certainly despised him. And, learning that after years spent working, working, working to be  _ good enough  _ just  _ once  _ for him that it was all futile, every moment of it, he hated himself even more.

Especially when they met, face to face, and he saw the way Oz was dressed. 

_ “Why are you wearing trousers?”  _ he’d said, voice low. 

_ “I’m a boy,”  _ Oz said, swallowing down fear.  _ “It’s… what you wanted, right? And it’s… who I am.” _

His father had looked away from him before he’d even finished, glaring down one of his nannies.  _ “Were your orders not clear? You are to raise my daughter, make her a suitable bride, and find her a noble, wealthy husband. That was  _ all.  _ And you failed.”  _

He raised his hand, and both Oz and his nanny tensed, but neither felt pain. 

Xai frowned. And left. 

Oz has never really liked himself.

 

 

Oz does not deserve to like himself.

He is a sin. They tell him in whispers and hisses and scratches and scrapes that he is a sin. 

He doesn’t know who ‘they’ are. But he knows they’re there, and they’re real, no matter what maids tell him after he wakes up from his nightmares. Their voices stay with him in his waking hours; he never allows himself to be alone because listening to them in the daylight _hurts,_ makes it _real,_ and he can’t push it to the back of his mind and tell himself it’s all a nightmare because _they’re_ _here_ and _they’re_ _here_ and _they’re_ _here._

Oz will never deserve to like himself.

 

 

Oz cannot like himself.

Not only is he a sin, now, but he is an impossibility, an illegal. His crime is the mark on his chest, the part of himself he hates the most, and he cackles to himself late at night because it’s so damn  _ fitting,  _ isn’t it? It’s so easy to ignore chest pains, now, after all the years spent wrapping cloth tighter tighter tighter around it, ribs crying out with every breath and threatening to snap but it’s always, always been worth it.

Unwrapping the cloth and spotting the elegant, empty seal above his heart, dark among redness and imprints of stretches of fabric, comes as no surprise to him. 

There is something wrong with this and he knows it. Gil does not tell him. Not at first.

He learns he is going to die, and he is going to die much sooner than he thought.

Oz cannot like himself.

 

 

Oz doesn’t have it within him to like himself.

One night, when the moon is large and bright and all breaths but theirs are slow and soft with sleep, he and Gil sit together on a chaise. They both hold books. Gil is reading. Oz is staring at the page and listening to whispers and hisses and scratches and scrapes.

The candle flickers. Gil says, “You have the seal, don’t you? Of the contract?”

He closes the book he is not reading and glances at the Raven. He is silent.

“On your chest?”

He breaks eye contact in favor of staring at the candle’s small flame, dimming now as it closes in on the brass of its holder.

“Let me see.”

He closes his eyes. 

“Please.”

His fingers find the buttons of his shirt and he works them undone. It falls down his shoulders, drops to his elbows. He unfastens the pins holding the wrap in place and pulls them loose so they pool around his abdomen. He has been bare-chested in front of Gil before, and he knows it doesn’t matter, never has, never will, but it does.

Gil’s hand rises to hover over the mark. Perhaps he touches it, but the skin is thick, solid, his body protecting itself from itself, and he would not know that the owner of such skin cannot feel it.

The Raven presses a featherlight kiss upon his collerbone and swears he’ll save him.

Oz doesn’t have it within him to like himself.

 

 

Oz has never really liked himself.

_ it’s red and black and white and grey and red and red and red. stainless skirts are dyed with blood and crimson eyes stare out of every crevice that is home to darkness and his vision is blurring but he has to keep going. _

Oz does not deserve to like himself.

_ iron: of shields and of swords and of new doorknobs and of ink and of blood and of blood and of blood. the smell is putrid and it clings to his senses even with the sleeve covering the mouth he breathes through.  _

Oz cannot like himself.

_ everyone is dead but he still hears screams. there are no breathing lungs that are capable of screaming but he still hears screams. he does not want to imagine the things that are screaming or making those things scream but he still hears screams. _

Oz doesn’t have it within him to like himself.

_ when he collapses something warm and wet soaks through his pants and then through his coat. every pulse of his heart is another broken bone and he wonders if he has ever been whole. _


End file.
